I've been slacking so here's an update - part 1: Little Honda

Sad to say but I only have one bike with tax AND mot at the moment - Horatio, the XL185 at last got through his MOT this week.  That was far more complicated than it should have been - the first time I booked him in, he decided that his battery wasn't charged enough to work the indicators so I had to cancel.  Then we noticed that the back tyre was looking a bit perished on the sides so I had to swap it with the back wheel from Herbert, the other XL185.  We checked everything over and all was fine, everything worked.

Off we went in the Special Bus for a fabby weekend at Mallory Park, thanks to me winning the RC caption competition on Facebook. Or rather I was runner up but the winner didn't want the prize of two weekend tickets for the VMCC Festival of 1000 Bikes, so I got it by default.

The MOT was re-booked for Wednesday, I went to work and BH was to take Horatio for his MOT. I got a ranty phone call along the lines of "What's wrong with this f**king bike, the handlebars and forks and front wheel are all out of line, it's f**king f**ked !" Or words to that effect. Frankly, I was baffled.  Last time I'd ridden him, everything was fine - we'd ridden to Leicestershire and back, a round trip of 120-130miles, without any problems.

BH was able to straighten out the forks and front wheel but the clocks, headlight and handlebars still looked wrong.  On examining the bike, it was clear he had been dropped or fallen over as there were scuff-marks on the headlight screen. And as I hadn't dropped him or found him lying down he must have managed to stand up again, put his sidestand down and pretend nothing had happened !  All I can think is that,while we were away at the weekend, kids had kicked a ball into the garden, clambered over the fence (over six foot high) and somehow knocked Horatio over, panicked and picked him up again and run away.

Anyway, I had to take the headlight off, disconnect all the wiring, unbolt the headlight bracket, bash it back into shape with Mr Lumpy and reassemble.  That worked reasonably well. I decided to swap the front wheel with the one from Herbert, so that Horatio had a matched pair.  That worked well too.  I decided to ride to the car wash - it's only just down the road so I decided to ride in shorts and a t-shirt. I hated it, I felt far too paranoid about falling off, or the front wheel falling off, or something else disastrous. As it turned out, the closest thing to disaster was that the car-wash was broken so I'd gone through all that paranoia trauma for nothing ! I washed him at home with a sponge and a mop bucket full of soapy water, then treated all the worst rust patches and touched up the paint so he didn't look too neglected.

He at last passed the MOT without any advisories, although the MOT man (having already commented "You've made it at last then!") kindly tried to tell me that he'd failed miserably.  Hahahahaha ! NOT funny ! But I got a £5 discount so all is forgiven .....